In what has been a season of much criticism of the standard of refereeing in the Premier Soccer League (PSL), Fifa has released the list of match officials for the Club World Cup without a South African on it.
The SA Premiership is known for being a commercial powerhouse and a very competitive league on the African continent.
This includes setting a high standard of refereeing, which produced top match officials who represented the country at major international competitions.
However, it has not been the case in recent years, as there has been a visible decline in SA referees being selected for major tournaments and costly schoolboy errors in the Betway Premiership this season, to a point that calls for the VAR have increased.
The most recent glaring incident was during the Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns Nedbank Cup semifinal match, where Amakhosi scored an offside goal at the death to advance to the final.
“Everything is centred around the appointment of Victor Gomes as the chairperson of Safa’s referees committee, because before he came on board [in May last year], we used to have several match officials at these world tournaments,” said a former referee who did not want to be named.
“And it is unfortunate that we have never heard from Gomes accounting to the nation as to why this thing happened, as the chairperson and someone who represents South Africa on the continent.”
Sunday World has tried reaching out to Gomes and Safa head of referees Abdul Ebrahim, but they were both unreachable and unavailable to respond to questions sent
to them.
